Posts Tagged ‘Igor Stravinsky’

Klaidi Sahatci is Konzertmeister of Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, he plays a Stradivari “ex Weniawsky”.Sandro Laffranchini is first cello soloist at La Scala Theatre, he plays a wonderful Carlo Antonio Testore’s cello (1730)Andrea Rebaudengo is concert pianist and member of ensembles of international fame.
For more info about the Trio, please, click here.

In this concert they perform:

Piano Trio for piano, violin and cello, a composition written in 1937 by the American conductor, composer, author and pianist, Leornard Bernsteind, considered by The New York Times “one of the most prodigiuously talented and successful musicians in American history“.

Suite italienne, is an arrangements for cello and piano of several movements from Igor Stravinsky‘s “Pergolesi” ballet Pulcinella (1919-1920).
Initially, in 1925 he wrote a Suite for violin and piano, after fragments by Giambattsta Pergolesi’s pieces. Then in 1932, in collaboration with the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, he re-works the earlier suite into the Suite italienne for cello and piano.

Porgy and Bess Suite is a composition written by George Gershwin in 1934, after reading the novel Porgy, by DuBose Heyward.

In this concert, the Japanese pianist Takahiro Yoshikawa proposes to Limenmusic’s audience two wonderful pieces.

The first, Trois mouvements de Petrouchka, is an arrangement for piano from the ballet Petrouchka, written by Igor Stravinsky for his friend, pianist Arthur Rubinstein, and dedicated to him.
After finished the musics for the ballet The Firebird, Stravinsky had already in mind a new picture: a “conflict” between a puppet and the orchestra, till the collapse of the puppet. Then he decided to call him Petrouchka, like a Russian traditional puppet made of straw and with a bag of sawdust as body, but who comes to life and starts to develop emotions.Serge Diaghilev, founder of Ballets Russes, recognised the possibility of developing this opus into a stage work, thus the Petrouchka became a ballet performed for the first time a Paris in 1911 at Théâtre du Châtelet.
Ten years later, Stravinsky composed Trois mouvements de Petrouchka for the solo piano, for his friend Arthur Rubinstein, with the aim of compose a score which would be essentially pianistic even though its musical material was drawn directly from the ballet.

The other piece, Pavane pour une infante défunte, is a solo piano work composed by Maurice Ravel in 1899, during his studies at the Conservatoire de Paris, under the guidance of the French composer Gabriel Fauré, and dedicated to his parton, the Princesse the Polignac.
This is an evocation of a pavane, a slow processional dance widespread in Europe in 16th century, that a little princess might have danced at the Spanish court.

On April 6th, 1971 died the Russian composer Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky, widely acknowledged as one of the most important and influential composers of 20th century music; also named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the century.
He achieved international fame with three ballets, composed during his Russian Period (1908 – 1918), commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev and performed by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes: the Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911 – 1947) and the Rite of Spring (1913).

You can appreciate a notable execution of Petrushka, performed by the talented Japanese pianist Takahiro Yoshikawa on Limenmusic Web Tv.Petrushka is a Russian traditional puppet, with a bag of stawdust as his body, and a head made of wood, who comes to life and develops emotions. The movements reveal his impossible desire to be human and show all the torment for his condition.
All the emotions and feelings of this touching tale are evoked by Takahiro Yoshikawa’s interpretation, able to express through his music the personal and intimate world of the puppets.
For the concert, please click here.